(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Qatar Airways (QA) has made it clear that it is not in competition with US carriers in nonstop markets and has no nonstop route that overlaps with any US carrier.
"Given the tenor of claims of the Big 3 US carriers, one might imagine that QA is their head-to-head competitor in dozens of nonstop markets. The reality is far different," QA said in a 'White Paper' to the US government.
QA's home market, Doha, is almost 8,000 miles from the US. No US carrier offers nonstop service from the US to Doha. Indeed, no US airline competes with QA in any nonstop market. Aside from the fact that it has no nonstop route that overlaps with any US carrier, QA also notes that it has almost no one-stop overlap with US carriers either.
Other than offering limited service to Mumbai and Delhi, US carriers provide almost no nonstop service to the markets QA serves behind Doha.
United offers nonstop service from the US to Mumbai, Delhi, Kuwait, Bahrain and Dubai, while Delta offers service to Dubai. American Airlines offers no service to the Middle East/GCC/SE Asia region.
Given US carriers' lack of competitive exposure to QA, their claims of threatened harm fall flat.
QA takes exception to any assertion that it "steals" traffic from US carriers. As a practical matter, carriers do not own or have any entitlement to "their" passengers, who are free to choose their service based on price and convenience.
International Airlines Group, the parent company of British Airways, has squarely (and persuasively) rejected that US carriers have any claim to "their" share of global traffic.
The Big 3's assertion is also false in absolute terms. The markets that feed QA's Doha-US traffic are largely unserved by US carriers.
While the Big Three complain about harm suffered by their European joint venture partners, the fact is that the networks of Air France, KLM and Lufthansa cover far fewer points in India, and the Indian subcontinent than does QA.
For example, Air France offers service to only three points in India - Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. A Delta passenger travelling to destinations in India other than these three, is faced with a connection at Paris, and another connection in India, an option far from convenient or attractive.
Changes in relative market shares of European carriers are being driven by the fact that QA offers one-stop service to many secondary points in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and elsewhere, that are only served on a two (or more) stop basis from the US by US carriers, together with their European partners.
Lufthansa and Air France/KLM have asserted that they have withdrawn from certain markets as a result of the introduction of services by Gulf carriers.
QA has reviewed these claims and found them to be demonstrably false. For example, Air France claims that it was "driven out" of Hanoi, but QA entered that market in November 2010, a month after Air France exited (October 2010). Similarly, QA launched service to Asmara more than 18 months after Lufthansa exited the market.
The US government should reject specious claims of any causal connection between QA's launch of new services and Lufthansa and/or Air France's exit from given markets.
QA offers service to 12 cities in India, including six served neither by any of the US Big 3 nor any of their European JV partners.
A recent study on the value of Open Skies confirms explosive growth of the US-India market and growth in demand for service to/from airports supporting secondary cities in India.
QA serves nonstop 12 cities in India from Doha. While these include Mumbai and Delhi (the only markets served by US carriers), QA offers service to points neither served by US carriers nor their European joint venture partners.
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